jon on Nostr: “Discrimination in the assignment of firehouse tasks, vicious practical jokes, or ...
“Discrimination in the assignment of firehouse tasks, vicious practical jokes, or in-house physical threats, while demeaning, disgusting, and dangerous, paled in comparison with the danger that Williams was subjected to while on duty. “The story they put out to the community,” he later recalled, “was that they ‘would burn the nigger up,’ and that I couldn’t take smoke because my nostrils were too wide.” In his first major firefighting duty, Williams and his company responded to a dangerous cellar fire in the Bowery district. Ordered to take the nozzle to prove his “courage and staying ability” to the rest of the company, Williams led while the others followed. He directed the nozzle’s stream at the heart of the fire, but a backdraft sparked a gas explosion. Williams’s company-mates, including his lieutenant, ran from the building into the street, leaving Williams for dead. Knocked on his back during the explosion, he somehow managed to maintain control of the hose, right himself, and quell the blaze by himself. Other fire companies on the scene snickered at the pack of cowards who had abandoned him, while Battalion Chief Ben Parker mocked Williams’s white company-mates, snidely remarking, “You were gonna burn him up? It looks like he burnt you fellas up.” FDNY officials later conceded that Williams had single-handedly “saved the building and probably the block.””
— Black Firefighters and the FDNY: The Struggle for Jobs, Justice, and Equity in New York City (Justice, Power, and Politics) by David Goldberg
https://a.co/iv8b5MrPublished at
2025-02-08 20:21:03Event JSON
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"content": "“Discrimination in the assignment of firehouse tasks, vicious practical jokes, or in-house physical threats, while demeaning, disgusting, and dangerous, paled in comparison with the danger that Williams was subjected to while on duty. “The story they put out to the community,” he later recalled, “was that they ‘would burn the nigger up,’ and that I couldn’t take smoke because my nostrils were too wide.” In his first major firefighting duty, Williams and his company responded to a dangerous cellar fire in the Bowery district. Ordered to take the nozzle to prove his “courage and staying ability” to the rest of the company, Williams led while the others followed. He directed the nozzle’s stream at the heart of the fire, but a backdraft sparked a gas explosion. Williams’s company-mates, including his lieutenant, ran from the building into the street, leaving Williams for dead. Knocked on his back during the explosion, he somehow managed to maintain control of the hose, right himself, and quell the blaze by himself. Other fire companies on the scene snickered at the pack of cowards who had abandoned him, while Battalion Chief Ben Parker mocked Williams’s white company-mates, snidely remarking, “You were gonna burn him up? It looks like he burnt you fellas up.” FDNY officials later conceded that Williams had single-handedly “saved the building and probably the block.””\n\n— Black Firefighters and the FDNY: The Struggle for Jobs, Justice, and Equity in New York City (Justice, Power, and Politics) by David Goldberg\nhttps://a.co/iv8b5Mr",
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